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Stoned

By Simon Critchley January 2, 2011 5:11 pmJanuary 2, 2011 5:11 pm

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

Many stones have been thrown since we first met here in May. Some have shattered windows of received wisdom; others have bounced off walls of resistance. Some have plopped quietly into inviting ponds of assent; others have rattled down unexplored alleys of thought.

Each of those stones has been picked up and thrown back, often passionately, sometimes with overwhelming frequency and speed. Let’s just say that many of us, readers and writers alike, got stoned.

Over the past seven months, we’ve invited some of the world’s most interesting philosophers, and a few philosophical thinkers from other fields, to brave the dangers and delights of the digital cave — its dark corners, artificial lights and endless chatter. Those who accepted have — graciously and with great intelligence and skill — shown themselves rather adept at navigating the terrain.

For those of us more used to paper-bound publishing and waits of months or years for some sort of response — if there is to be any response at all — contributing to The Stone could at times be a thrilling, but disorienting experience. The extraordinary speed and geographical reach of the online medium, with assent or criticism pouring in from readers within minutes of publication, could take some getting used to. It was like some glitch of time travel: philosophers practicing their ancient art in a forum that could have only been imagined as pure science fiction 50 years ago.

Now, at year’s end, after more than 50 posts and more than 15,000 reader comments — many of which possessed a rigor, engagement and depth of thought worthy of any philosopher — it’s time to call a halt to all the stone throwing, at least for a little while. After today, The Stone will go on hiatus. We hope to return in the not-too-distant future.

So what have we learned?

That philosophy still matters. That it is not some otherworldly activity conducted by a handful of remote individuals safely incarcerated away in institutions of higher learning.

Or is it?

True, philosophy has been an academic activity for most of its long and geographically diverse history. The original academy of Plato was set up at the edges of the city to pursue the teaching and doctrines of Socrates. But certainly, as our experience participating in The Stone has shown us, it is more than that.

Erin Schell

The contemporary United States, the country in which I now reside, has many of the finest university philosophy departments in the world. The life of these departments is embodied in the activity of the formation of teachers and researchers who will go on to make their own contributions to the discipline. This professional continuity is hugely important to those of us who teach philosophy for a living. But of course, philosophy is also more than a profession.

Philosophy, among other things, is that living activity of critical reflection in a specific context, by which human beings strive to analyze the world in which they find themselves, and to question what passes for common sense or public opinion — what Socrates called doxa — in the particular society in which they live. Philosophy cuts a diagonal through doxa. It does this by raising the most questions of a universal form: “What is X?” Philosophy assesses and presses public opinion by asking essential questions: “What is knowledge?” “What is justice?” “What is love?”

Hegel says that philosophy can allow us to comprehend our time in thought. But it can also allow us to resist our time.

The hope that drives this activity is that the considerations to which such universal questions give rise can, through inquiry and argumentation, have an educative or even emancipatory effect. Philosophy, as the great American philosopher Stanley Cavell puts it, is the education of grownups.

It is my view that philosophy must form part of the life of a culture. It must engage the public and influence how a culture converses with itself, understands itself, talks to other cultures and seeks to understand them. It has been enormously gratifying to see this pursuit flourishing in today’s agora — the virtual one — confronting, engaging and even embracing the fluid, ambiguous and frenetic nature of the electronic public realm.

As it functions in society, philosophy can also provide a method for debunking the many myths and ideologies that we live by and propose alternative conceptual or normative frameworks for thinking about concepts — justice, truth, freedom, the mind, science, religion — all of which have been debated over the past months in The Stone. Hegel says that philosophy can allow us to comprehend our time in thought. But it can also — perhaps more importantly — allow us to resist our time, to ask untimely questions, difficult, intractable and unfashionable questions. Nietzsche writes in a very late text, where he is still trying to wrestle himself free from the spell of his fascination with the composer Richard Wagner:

What does a philosopher demand of himself first and last? To overcome his time in himself, to become “timeless.” With what must he therefore engage in the hardest combat? With whatever marks him as a child of his time. Well, then I am, no less than Wagner, a child of this time; that is, a decadent. But I comprehended this, I resisted it. The philosopher in me resisted.

Let me finish, as we began The Stone last May, with a reference to Socrates. Socrates had a friend called Simon. He was a sandal-maker. According to legend, he let Socrates use his house for discussions when the conduct of such discussions was not allowed in the agora. Simon’s house was just outside the boundary (horos) of the agora. That boundary was defined by fascinating stone markers, about three feet high, one of which declares “Horoseimi tes agoras.” I am the boundary of the agora. Again, according to legend, Simon was imprisoned after Socrates was arrested, though later released. Not much more is known about him.

Philosophy is not policymaking. It is not reducible to the business of politics, and it is questionable, to say the least, whether philosophers can be kings or should even advise princes, potentates or presidents. But philosophy can occupy an important space in relation to the public realm, in a sandal maker’s small house, at the edge of the agora, observing its movements closely and pointing out some of its delusions and some of the shadows that are taken to be real.

Despite certain appearances to the contrary — Descartes seated next to his stove in the Low Countries, Wittgenstein in his Norwegian cabin or indeed Nietzsche in his rented rooms in Turin — philosophy is not a solitary activity of cogitation or rumination. In the various schools of antiquity, philosophy was a collective activity conducted in the Academy, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Garden of Epicurus or in the shade cast by the Stoa.

In the contemporary world, it is difficult to find a Stoa large enough for us all to fit, so our digital cave will have to suffice. But the point here is that philosophy is a shared activity, it is dialogue. And dialogue is not the simple exchange of opinions, where I have my faith, my politics and my God and you have yours. That is parallel monologue. One of the goals of dialogue is to have our opinions rationally challenged in such a way that we might change our minds. True dialogue is changing one’s mind. I very much hope that readers of The Stone have had occasion to change their minds once or twice. Thanks to our contributors and to the wonderful, vast, vociferous and engaged audience of readers out there, I know I’ve changed my mind. Many times.

Thanks. We’ll be back.

To find the entire collection of posts in the series, with comments, from 2010, visit The Stone’s main page. If you have comments or suggestions, you can send them to the series editor at opinionator@nytimes.com. Please include “The Stone” in the subject line.

Simon Critchley is chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, and part-time professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He is the author of many books, including “Infinitely Demanding” and “The Book of Dead Philosophers.” A book of conversations with Critchley,”How to Stop Living and Start Worrying,” has just been published by Polity Press.

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The Stone features the writing of contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. The series moderator is Simon Critchley. He teaches philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York. To contact the editors of The Stone, send an e-mail to opinionator@nytimes.com. Please include “The Stone” in the subject field.